


Worlds to act upon

by 20thcenturyvole



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Divine Leliana, Gen, Solas does not appear in person sorry, Trespasser DLC, but he sure is the topic of the day!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7367323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20thcenturyvole/pseuds/20thcenturyvole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Inquisitor pursues the Viddasala, Divine Victoria awaits her return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worlds to act upon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dawnstonedagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstonedagger/gifts).



> So, my recipient requested something involving Leliana, Cassandra and Solas. This ended up more of a Leliana character study, since I wondered how she and Cassandra - but especially Leliana, given her position - would react to the revelation of who Solas is, and what he plans, but neither of them actually got to see Solas in that DLC. Anyway, I hope this suffices, Dawnstone!

The mitre is heavy, and it digs into the soft flesh above her ear. Just her right ear. An imbalance in the make of this one – she has tried adjusting it in private, to no lasting relief. She could ask her tailor to look into it – later, when she may doff the robes of her office. Pious and loyal as her wardrobe-master is, the man may well work through the night to get it done. For now, in the gardens of Halamshiral, sipping wine in full view of the Orlesian court while Josephine bluffs and stalls the Inquisition’s enemies and Herah is on the other side of a rippling, otherworldly mirror, Leliana searches for serenity in thoughts of the Maker, and waits.

Waiting on information, her spies perched on every rooftop. Waiting on developments, with contingencies in mind. Waiting to see if the day is saved, or if calamity is about to engulf them. Looking for serenity and waiting has been the last decade of her life. Now that she is Divine, she is grateful she has had that much practice.

Qunari in the gardens. Qunari assassins, using Elven magic. She thinks of Sten, and knows that just because she fought with him and bled with him years ago, it does not mean she knows him now. The man she knew would disdain these methods, but he is not a platoon commander any more. Like her, he is older and far from the life he once knew. Like her, his responsibilities are greater. Like her, his hand may be forced by pragmatism. This may be the work of a rogue faction, or this may be the precursor to a true invasion. Were she in his position, she would find a particularly competent rogue faction and subtly steer them to this – a great asset if their plan works, and plausibly deniable if it does not. But she doesn’t know, and the heavy robes of her office mean she cannot pick up a bow, step through the Eluvian, and find out for herself. She waits, with only speculation for company.

Across the garden, by the fountain, she can see a chess game in progress. Ostensibly, it is meant to be Dorian versus the Iron Bull, but that is a laughable challenge, so Cullen leans over periodically to mutter advice in Dorian’s ear. That has led to no less than four arguments between Dorian and Cullen in the last half-hour, and each time, the Iron Bull watches their squabble with amusement. Even from here, she can see the strain of it at the corner of his mouth. They are doing their best to distract each other, stuck like her on the other side of the mirror.

The Iron Bull’s report to her, on his return from Herah’s initial expedition, had as usual been thorough, meticulous, and to the point. It had also been brief. He had cut himself off the moment he caught himself saying _maybe_. “I don’t _know_ ,” he’d growled, fists curling in frustration. “If I still had my contacts—“ He cut himself off again, and snorted. “But that ship is sunk. Sorry, Red. I can guess, I can speculate, but the information I’ve got on these people is years out of date.”

She meets his eye across the courtyard, just for a moment. He winks at her with his single eye, then moves a piece on the board that makes Dorian and Cullen both react in anguish. Bull is a strange mirror to her, the spy cast out of the Qun as she has been elevated in the Chantry. She does not begrudge his dearth of knowledge – if he still had his contacts, he’d still be a trap waiting to spring. No, it is not the lack of knowledge about the Viddasala’s plans that rankle. After all, the Qunari agents sent to Halamshiral have all been slain. She does not know by whom. There is a third party in this mess, and they have felled the invaders and disappeared.

Morrigan? But even she is not so powerful. Morrigan’s mother? Perhaps, but what could motivate her to do this? Who else could it be?

Elves are disappearing. Leaving. Going to parts unknown. Her own Elven contacts either don’t know what’s happening, or are choosing not to tell her. Those contacts are dwindling in number. She must be cautious about what pressure she applies. And she cannot help that her thoughts keep circling back to Solas – Solas, who disappeared when Corypheus was defeated. Solas, who just happened to be near when the Corypheus destroyed the Conclave.  Solas, who knew so much and said so little and whose vague answers to questions about his past revealed nothing that could be verified. Is this connected? The strange temple the Inquisitor saw. The ancient, dreamlike paths that Dorian described. Ancient magic. Dream magic. But there is no information she can act on yet.

Her cup-bearer, Glenis, waits discreetly out of sight at all times except when she is needed, and then she appears almost before Leliana thinks to summon her. That is what Orlais expects of a competent servant. In fact, Glenis waits in a hidden alcove attached to a servants’ entrance, where she may receive messages on Leliana’s behalf. Leliana knows that one has come, because she is not thirsty in the slightest and yet here Glenis is, at her elbow, pouring a thin stream of honeyed wine into Leliana’s cup. “The Inquisitor has returned, your Holiness,” she mutters, her face placid, her lips slightly parted and unmoving. “The scout would not say more, and left quickly. She was agitated.”

Leliana raises her hand, just slightly, as if to say when, and murmurs her thanks. The trickle of wine stops, and Glenis bows and retreats. Leliana sips her wine, and descends to glide in her holy robes across the courtyard. An Inquisition runner appears on the steps of the Winter Palace and casts his eyes about before sighting Commander Cullen, but Leliana gets there first.

“Your Perfection!” Cullen says, interrupting Dorian’s suggestion of just where Bull could put his castle. “Come to save us? I was just about to call a retreat.”

“I do miss rescuing my comrades,” Leliana says, keeping her voice light. “In return, you could accompany me on a walk. I find myself restless.” She meets the runner’s gaze, and he tilts his head and turns right – towards Blackwall and Cole. Gathering the inner circle, then. “Come, all of you.”

By now, Bull has noticed the runner too, and nudged Dorian. “Ah,” Dorian says, catching on, then rallies and offers Leliana his arm. “Shall we?”

She sets down her cup beside the chessboard. From the pavilion, Vivienne emerges at an unhurried pace – she has messengers of her own. At the right pace, Leliana’s path can intersect with hers. As a group, they go.

Varric’s is the first face she sees outside the chamber of the Eluvian, and though she is relieved that he has returned upright and whole, she halts at the sight of his expression: tired, stricken. He looks like he did when the Seekers brought him in.  “Go on in,” he says. “Someone’s got to talk Cassandra down.”

“The Qunari,” Leliana asks.

“Gone. Dealt with.” He shakes his head and chuckles, low. “Turns out they were the least of our problems.”

In the door behind him, Cassandra appears, her face a mask of fury. Leliana knows her too well. She is coated in grime and blood, but she is not in a dudgeon because the heat of battle lingers. There is fear in her eyes, and grief. Whatever’s happened, Leliana must—she must—

“Your Holiness,” Cassandra says, voice hollow. Her shoulders are rigid, her fists clenched. She won’t meet Leliana’s eyes.

Around the corner, Sera’s voice, cracked and teary, brittle with insults. And lower, responding: the Inquisitor. Herah. She’s alive. Then what—?

Leliana steps into the room and sees them, slumped against the wall by the darkened Eluvian, heads bent together. Sera’s voice cuts off on “—shove his elfy fucking plan right up his—“ when she hears Leliana’s tread, and she turns away from Herah, wiping her face angrily.

The Inquisitor lifts her proud head, and her horns click against the wall behind her. She makes to get up, but struggles a moment, off-balance. Behind her, Dorian chokes back a gasp, and Leliana sees with a sick swoop that Herah’s left arm is gone at the elbow.

*

Later, after the shouting is over, Leliana finds Cassandra leaning out over the battlements. It is a very quiet part of the palace. Secluded. It muffles sounds from the rest of the garden, and gives the illusion of privacy. It is probably a popular spot for lovers to go. Or those like Cassandra, who do not wish their anguish to be public.

She does not turn around when she hears Leliana’s approach. Her spine goes rigid, but her face remains turned away. She is angry, then. Angry with Leliana. “Did you see Solas?” Leliana says, as gently as she can.

“No,” Cassandra spits. “The eluvian went dark the moment she stepped through. We found her, after, amid the Viddasala’s forces. He had turned them all to stone. With a look, she said. She was barely conscious, but she told us. She told us everything he’d done.”

Leliana nods, though Cassandra isn’t looking. She has seen battlefield amputations. Even if there is a mage nearby skilled enough to heal the wound, as Herah’s was, the shock is enough to render most unconscious or at least incoherent afterwards. That their Inquisitor is the exception does not surprise her. But the cold dread that settled in her belly when she saw the stump has spread into her limbs, now; it creeps even now into her fingertips and face. Every detail makes this worse. Much worse.

“She has chosen to disband,” Cassandra says, something painful cracking in her voice. “Surely now is the time to stand together? I do not doubt her courage, but to submit to Ferelden concerns over sovereignty when we stand at the brink of disaster...”

“It is not submission,” Leliana says, “It is prudence. A large organisation, such as the Inquisition has become, is more easily infiltrated by spies.” Cassandra begins to turn, at last, her stiff spine unbending. Leliana does not waver. “The Inquisition may survive longer and gain more intelligence in scattered cells.”

“Intelligence,” Cassandra echoes. Her face blazes. “What intelligence did we have on him? On his powers, his plans? I fought beside him in the field. I thought I knew him. He helped us defeat Corypheus, and he was the only reason Corypheus had that power in the first place. _How did we not know_?” She drops her eyes. “Forgive me, your Perfection,” she says stiffly.

How Leliana hates that title in the mouths of her friends. She knows what Cassandra means, and will not say, even in the grip of her temper. _How did you not know_? Leliana, the spymaster, who speaks the language of ravens, moves as silently as the owl, and sees with an eagle’s eye – yes, she’s heard the silly, awestruck words. They were always half in jest, but even jokes have a kind of power. She used to rely on that. Now she only feels her terrible, earthly limitation. She did not know – did not suspect – because the Dread Wolf of Arlathan, awoken from a thousand years of slumber, was so beyond the scope of her imagination as to be ridiculous.

She takes off the mitre, and sets it on a stone bench. Cassandra looks disapproving, but Leliana pays that no mind, and joins her at the balcony’s edge. The world looks so green and peaceful from up here. It doesn’t look like a nightmare world to her. But perhaps, to him...

“Do you remember what the Inquisitor said, when she and Dorian came back from that other world?” she says. “The future, where Corypheus won? That I was there, and Iron Bull and Sera too, and we in that other world were sickly, and blighted, and waiting to die. The world was mad and broken, and so she had to come back, had to stop it from happening.” She laughs a little, bitterly, and says, “Imagine if they’d gone much further forward? If Herah saw instead a world of red lyrium and a sundered sky, and in this world were shambling monsters and their monster children, all living in misery, waiting to die, and she lived among them for a year and when she told them that she had to go back, to set the world on a better path, her new friends all said, ‘Why? What’s wrong with this one?’”

Cassandra frowns at her deeply. “That is not funny,” she points out. “And we are not monsters.”

Leliana shrugs. “We might be to him. Short-lived, and strange; noble, some of us, with our own rituals and histories, quirks and opinions, now that he’s gotten to know us – but still shambling under a strange sky, in a poisoned land. Still not something he would miss.”

“Then we meant so little to him,” Cassandra says softly. “Herah thinks she can change his mind. She says she told him she would change his mind. That he said he hoped she would.”

“I trust that she will try,” Leliana says. In time, she thinks she may long for something as straightforward as the Blight.

She lifts the mitre back onto her head, and sets about re-pinning her wimple. Cassandra watches her for a moment, and then steps forward, and Leliana remembers how sometimes, they used to assist Divine Justinia this way – her left and right hands, handmaidens in a pinch.

Cassandra holds the mitre in place as Leliana tucks her hair away, and frowns as she resettles it. “It is too heavy on the right,” she says.

Leliana sighs. “I know. I will get it adjusted.”

On her list of things to do, it’s the only one she knows can be done.

END


End file.
